A chance to exhale and a sigh of relief

Heat ends 15-game skid despite anxious finish

Figure on something other than the previous course down Biscayne Boulevard.

Things didn't exactly work out too well after that one.

Winning for the first time since Dec. 22, the Heat snapped its 15-game losing streak Saturday when Dwyane Wade finally ran into an opponent he single-handedly could bring down.

With Wade scoring 35 points, including the final nine of an 11-0 third-quarter streak that helped rally his team from what had been an 11-point deficit, the Heat withstood the Indiana Pacers 98-96 at AmericanAirlines Arena.

"Hopefully," Wade said, "we can get going and we can forget all about that has happened."

There certainly is plenty to forget, including Saturday's final harrowing minutes, after the Heat nearly blew all of the 94-85 lead it took when Wade converted a 3-pointer with 4:34 to play.

But it took Wade knocking away a Troy Murphy inbounds pass with seconds remaining for the Heat to survive.

"It really felt like we won the championship," said forward Dorell Wright, who tossed the ball high in the air at the final buzzer.

After weeks of ridicule, the Heat saw this as a moment that had to be seized. With Indiana's Jermaine O'Neal and Jamaal Tinsley sidelined by injuries, the team not only galvanized its resolve but also plotted ahead at the walk-through practice just prior to game time.

That's when the players decided if there would be a victory, it would mean finally putting an end to Pat Riley's postgame dissertations.

"We know he lives for those moments," guard Daequan Cook said.

"We didn't give him the chance to."

So the players immediately called for a locker room huddle and then went their own way, leaving Riley, well, speechless.

No matter the depleted state of the Pacers, or the fact that Indiana entered with 12 losses in its previous 16, the Heat couldn't be choosy, not when it entered within two losses of the team-record streak set at the franchise's 1988 inception.

This is, after all, a team that lost to last-place Minnesota, Milwaukee, Memphis and New York in dropping the 15 straight.

"You want to get it over with. That's all it is," a visibly relieved Riley said.

"You just want to get it over. You just get it over and then you can move on and don't have to worry about this weight."

The most shocking aspect of the day was not how the Heat nearly blew another lead, but rather how it emerged 8 1/2 games out of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, behind these very Pacers. At 9-33, no less.

Although the Heat placed five players in double figures in scoring, it still again leaned heavily on Wade, whose chronically sore left knee again left him a liability on defense.

Wade shot 12 of 20 from the field, with eight rebounds and four assists.

But there were several other numbers that helped add up to the end of the longest losing streak of Riley's coaching career.

Center Mark Blount, again filling in for sidelined Shaquille O'Neal and Alonzo Mourning, had 19 points. Wright contributed 10 rebounds. Point guard Jason Williams had eight assists and a career-high six steals, the most by a Heat player this season. Power forward Udonis Haslem added 12 points and nine rebounds.

Considering how awful things had gone for the Heat since celebrating its 2006 title, from last season's first-round playoff ouster, to the seeming career-ending knee injury of Mourning in December, to the hip ailment that now has O'Neal out, and the final buzzer allowed for a rare exhale.

"It lasts for one second," Riley said, "but, yes, you had to get that streak off your back."